Here then, in February, 1837, was a passing allusion made by Mr. Hill to an adhesive stamp, showing that, subsequent to the issue of the first edition of his pamphlet, he had acquired from some quarter the idea of Mr. Chalmers' invention. February, 1837, was two years and a half after the proved invention of the adhesive stamp by Mr. Chalmers, one of the early postal reformers, one who "held correspondence with the postal reformers of his day, both in and out of Parliament" ("Encyclopædia Britannica," see page 39 following), the correspondent, amongst others, of Messrs. Knight & Co., who published for Mr. Hill. In a letter, then, of 18th January, 1840, as we learn from Mr. Pearson Hill's account of the matter, and from Mr. Chalmers' reply, Mr. Hill pointed out to Mr. Chalmers that his claim could not be admitted, because he, Mr. Hill, first proposed an adhesive stamp in February, 1837, the first official proposal of his plan by Mr. Chalmers, his letter to Mr. Wallace and the House of Commons Committee, having been only in December of the same year. In answer to this extraordinary pretension on the part of Mr. Hill, it is enough to point to Mr. Hill's letters to the Postmaster-General, Lord Litchfield, in January, 1838, explaining and enforcing his penny postage scheme then before the public--letters published in the papers of the period, and in which not a word is said of an adhesive stamp.[7] Or more than enough, to point to the speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, already quoted (page 13), to prove that, up to so late a date as the 5th July, 1839, Mr. Hill had _not_ proposed to adopt an adhesive stamp. The press, up to 30th August, 1839, had heard of no such proposal on his part.[8]